Work requests are a way to formally capture and organize maintenance activities by collecting information about issues with assets or facilities, then turning them into actionable tasks.
Work requests ensure that teams can identify and address issues with equipment in a structured and timely manner. In maintenance, where equipment reliability and uptime matter most, work requests are more than paperwork. They help keep every piece of machinery running properly.
Let's break down work requests: what they are, how to write them effectively, and how to use them to stop small problems from becoming major headaches.
Key takeaways
- A work request is a formal submission to report an issue, while a work order is the authorized task to fix it. Understanding this distinction is key to an efficient maintenance workflow.
- It’s important to standardize your work request forms to include essential details like location, asset ID, problem description, and priority level to ensure technicians have the information they need.
- Transitioning from paper or spreadsheets to a computerized maintenance management system for work requests centralizes communication, prevents lost requests, and provides data for continuous improvement.
- Prioritizing requests based on safety, operational impact, and asset criticality helps your team focus on what matters most and reduces unplanned downtime.
What is a maintenance work request?
A maintenance work request (also called a work order request) is a document that alerts facility managers when an asset requires maintenance repairs or an inspection. Employees within and out of maintenance can submit these requests after noticing something isn't working correctly. This submission can be manual via paper or through a digital platform, such as a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), which is software that helps organize and track maintenance activities.
Part of a maintenance worker's job is keeping facilities and equipment in good working condition. By responding to work requests, including following up on the notifications, these individuals play an essential role in keeping everyone productive, comfortable, and safe.
However, if you don't manage work order requests well, they become burdensome backlogs that hurt organizational productivity. Imagine falling behind schedule and having to sort through dozens of requests at once.
Beyond the administrative hassle, you'll face real facility problems with impending failures and prolonged downtime. Under these circumstances, returning your mean time to repair (MTTR) to normal levels becomes a major challenge. That's why maintenance teams must develop a structured approach to work order management.
Work request examples
Work order requests can come from any department in your organization, or even from external vendors and contractors. The source depends on your specific operation.
Common scenarios include:
- Manufacturing floor operators: Reporting conveyor belt misalignment during production runs
- Facilities managers: Requesting heating, ventilation, and air conditioning repairs before peak season demand
- Food processing supervisors: Submitting urgent requests for equipment sanitization after contamination alerts
- Logistics coordinators: Requesting forklift brake repairs to prevent safety incidents
As we stated, a work request doesn't have to originate from a member of your organization. An outside vendor can scope out work requests and submit them in hopes they become work orders. In other industries, like educational institutions, teachers can submit a work request pertaining to their classroom, such as a broken heater, which helps facilitate a quick turnaround when equipment needs maintenance.
The difference between work requests and work orders
It's easy to confuse work requests with work orders. But there's an important distinction between these two terms. Work requests represent an appeal for maintenance to be performed on a given asset. Technically speaking, management can approve or deny that request.
Work orders, on the other hand, are already authorized assignments for planned maintenance. Maintenance work doesn't start until management assigns a work order.
In practice, work requests—the ask—become work orders—the assignment—after their submission and approval. Either maintenance supervisors or maintenance planners can approve them. Factors they consider before approving requests include:
- Available maintenance budget
- Staff capacity
- Criticality of the asset
- Severity of the reported issue
- Safety impact of the reported issue
- Planned maintenance activities already in place
- Asset age and condition (Up to 40% of asset failures stem from age-related deterioration, making replacement vs. repair decisions critical for budget planning and operational continuity)
Types of work requests
Work requests range from urgent issues that stop production to routine maintenance tasks. Assigning a work request type helps provide context on how crucial the request is and allows organizations to prioritize maintenance tasks.
Organizations base work requests on the following priority levels:
- Discretionary: These are maintenance tasks that aren't mandatory. They include projects such as cubicle upgrading, office painting, and furniture relocation in an office facility.
- Non-discretionary: Technicians perform these emergency maintenance jobs to mitigate problems that jeopardize safety. Typical examples of these compulsory work order requests include power restoration and chemical spills.
- Urgent: These time-sensitive requests include issues such as broken conveyors on a production line and repairing HVAC systems during winter.
- Routine: Workers perform these preventive maintenance activities to keep assets in good operating condition, extend asset life cycles, and reduce downtime. Such activities include routine cleaning or lubrication.
- Non-routine: Operational managers sometimes plan special projects for a variety of reasons. Urgent and non-discretionary tasks often fall into the non-routine category.
What to include in a work request form
You can customize work request forms to fit your organization's needs, but there are a few common fields that help ensure their effectiveness. We've outlined common elements of a work request below and provided a template to help you get started. The more detailed the documentation, the higher the chance an operational manager will approve the requested maintenance.
1. Name/contact information
When someone submits a work request, they should provide their name and an email address or phone number. This allows a maintenance technician to contact that person and ask questions to help provide context behind the request. It also allows you to notify the party when management accepts a work request and turns it into a work order, as well as when technicians complete the work order.
2. Request
The most essential field on a work request form is often the request field. This is where the requester identifies the primary issue needing maintenance. Typical problems include servicing machines, replacing parts, or even performing emergency repair work on an asset that breaks down. Others include vehicle repair, landscaping, snow removal, carpentry work, and leaky faucets.
Adding detail to the request field is crucial for the success of a work request. At times, problems are not immediately noticeable or repeatable. For example, if a problem only occurs when first turning machines on in the morning, workers should take note. Further breaking down this section on a work request form into more detailed components, such as ‘Sounds or smells observed’, will give more specific and helpful context for the request.
3. Location
If the organization has multiple facilities, the request should indicate the specific plant or area that needs maintenance. Once again, aim for as much detail as possible. This helps to provide the exact location of the asset that needs maintenance and saves time since maintenance technicians fulfill several requests per day.
4. Priority levels
Priority levels depend on how much a reported problem affects an organization's bottom line, stakeholder well-being, or overall safety. Assign each document a high, medium, or low priority level to help prioritize important requests and ensure operations continue smoothly.
5. Budget estimates
Maintenance technicians sometimes include budgetary estimates on request documents. This step makes it easier to plan maintenance and manage accounting and finance records.
6. Necessary parts and tools
A request should also specify if the work requires any particular tools. For example, if a machine requires a repair, it's important that the technician has all the tools they need to execute the repair. Not having this information upfront results in wasted effort and prolonged downtime. Similarly, requesters should note any necessary or replacement parts.
7. Department
If a request comes from within the organization, tracking work requests back to departments is very beneficial. It allows organizations to properly allocate costs and helps with end-of-year finances. Some organizations break down maintenance tasks based on which department is making the request.
8. Date
Adding the date of the initial request is another field that helps with reporting. By tracking the request date, the date management creates a work order, and the day technicians complete the work, maintenance teams can demonstrate their efficiency and provide baseline data on how much time teams spend on various maintenance tasks.
Work request form template
The following template can help your organization create and process work requests. Feel free to use it and customize it to your organization's needs.
How to manage work requests
How you manage work requests can make or break your operations, and there are different approaches depending on your resources and scale. Here are a few key methods.
Pen and paper
This method requires the least setup and works well for small teams or organizations that handle only a few requests. But while it's easy to implement, this approach has serious drawbacks. Users often misplace requests or misinterpret handwritten instructions. Plus, tracking requests gets harder as volume increases. Studying or analyzing requests to identify trends becomes a difficult process, requiring that you look through piles of paper.
Spreadsheets
Tools like Excel or Google Sheets offer more structure than pen and paper, allowing you to create forms and automate certain aspects. You can also share the document with your team much more easily. As your organization grows, managing work requests this way becomes cumbersome, with data spreading across multiple sheets and the potential for version control issues.
Software
Digital solutions offer a better approach. A CMMS, for example, gives you a central hub where you can manage all work requests from one place. Users can submit, review, prioritize, approve, and track work requests (and work orders) all within one central system. These systems often offer mobile access, allowing you real-time access to requests. Yes, it costs more upfront in resources and training, but the time you'll save makes it worth the investment.
Benefits of managing work requests with a computerized maintenance management system
A CMMS beats other methods hands down. It cuts errors, simplifies your workflow, and shows you exactly where each request stands. Let's explore a few of these benefits now.
Create better work requests
A CMMS helps you create better work requests with all the details your team needs. Work request templates in a maintenance management system show your team exactly what information to include. MaintainX, for example, offers pre-filled templates and required fields that guarantee your team captures the right information every single time. In addition, users can attach photos, videos, and voice memos to enhance the information they include in a work request. This process allows you to respond to problems faster and more thoroughly.
Review, assign, and prioritize work requests
As work requests come in, a CMMS lets you handle the entire process from one dashboard. You can see each work request as it's submitted, approve it, and assign the work order to a team or technician. The right software shows you who's available and what they're working on. You can then assign work based on who has capacity, not guesswork. You can prioritize work orders and monitor the process from start to finish.
Share real-time updates
Share and receive updates from the floor in real-time with a CMMS. Instant messaging and work order commenting allow you to communicate and keep everybody in the loop about new developments, from new instructions to updated work statuses.
Maintain detailed histories
By digitizing your work request processes with a maintenance management system, you'll automatically create a history of work requests and work orders. You can pull up historical asset performance data and spot trends like repeated failures of specific assets or parts.
Analyze your data
CMMS reporting tools show you exactly how your maintenance management process is working. You can see how frequently certain requests come in and who completes which requests. You can also track key metrics like MTTR and downtime. This data helps you make smarter decisions about your operations.
The bottom line on work request management
Managing work order requests is where proactive maintenance starts. Standardize your intake process, define clear priorities, and use a central system. You'll turn requests from paperwork into useful data.
This approach means your team fixes critical issues fast and your team works more efficiently. You'll see less downtime, longer asset life, and smoother operations that keep everything running.
Ready to modernize your maintenance operations? Sign Up for Free and discover how MaintainX helps 12,000+ customers streamline work request management across manufacturing, logistics, and other asset-intensive industries.
Work request FAQs
The purpose of a work request is to alert the maintenance and operations team of work that needs to be completed. It scopes out the work that the requester would like done, including potential costs, the location of the asset, and the priority level of the request.
There are a few key pieces of information that should be included on a work request. The most important of which is to outline the scope of the work needed. Requester name, contact information, work department, location, budget considerations, and priority level are other pieces of information found in a work request.
The easiest way to create a work request is to leverage the power of a CMMS. By using one, you can establish an easy portal for work requests and simplify the overall process by tagging assets and including pictures. With a CMMS, it’s not just creating a work request that is easy. You’ll improve your tracking, managing, and reporting and gain much-needed visibility on the work your maintenance department manages.
In order to become a work order, a work request must first be approved. Maintenance managers, maintenance supervisors, maintenance coordinators, or facility managers are the roles typically in charge of approving work requests.
Standardize your submission process with required fields for asset location, problem description, and visual documentation. Provide brief training sessions for floor operators and supervisors, emphasizing that detailed requests lead to faster resolution times and reduced equipment downtime.
Establish a clear escalation protocol with immediate notification channels that bypass standard queues. Emergency requests should automatically trigger highest priority alerts to on-duty technicians and maintenance supervisors, ensuring rapid response to protect safety and minimize production losses.
Digital systems create detailed records linking every request to labor hours, parts costs, and downtime impact. This data enables you to analyze spending patterns by asset type, identify high-maintenance equipment, and build data-driven cases for preventive maintenance investments or equipment replacement decisions.
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